Writing the White and Purple Coats

Well, after a long period of poetic celibacy, my poem ‘Stoning Cherries’ has been published in the Hippocrates Book of the Heart… and mmm it feels good!

Edited by my old friends Wendy French, Michael Hulse and Donald Singer, the Hippocrates Book of the Heart brings together “what the poets say about the heart” and “what the medical professionals say about the heart”. Continue Reading →

Well it’s official! I will be reading some of my poems at the Polari Literary Salon On Tour at the Unity Theatre in Liverpool on the 4th November, as part of the 2015 Homotopia Festival. Here’s what the Polari website has to say about this year’s and last year’s tours: Continue Reading →

Friday 22nd May saw the 6th International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine come and go, and with it the launch of my first collection of poetry: Rupture.

I might write about Rupture in a separate post later, but for now I would like to concentrate on the symposium itself, which was fascinating as always.

After working the night shift in Liverpool on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, it was an operation of near-military precision to arrive at the venue in central London at 9am on Friday morning rested and alert, coffee in hand, lipstick in situ, and not having had a panic attack on the Jubilee Line at rush hour or having twisted my ankle in wholly unsuitable shoes. Continue Reading →

This morning I picked up Dannie Abse‘s last collection, Speak Old Parrot, published when he was ninety years old, and read ‘Cats’. It made me want to cry. If he was still with us* I would want to throw my arms around him and give him a big hug for this poem. The reasons are complex. Perhaps I’m just tired. I stayed up too late last night.

I’ve been busy updating this website over the last few days. It’s been a bit neglected to tell the truth. I’ve been working hard to put the finishing touches on the manuscript for my first collection, and we are finally done. More on that very shortly, but in the meantime, ‘Cats’. Continue Reading →

I’ve just finished reading this modern classic, which resonates in several ways with the piece I am writing for my MA course. Here are a few thoughts:

In her introduction to the 2014 Edition, Winterson comments on the placing of her book first in the cookery (preserves) section and later in the Gay and Lesbian section of bookshops, remarking that “had I been a straight white male the confidence of the writing and the experiment with form and material would have put it there [in the Literature section] to begin with”. Continue Reading →

Any thoughts on this short anonymous article from last week’s Guardian newspaper?

“I see maybe two or three students a year who have what it takes. There are others who can barely string a sentence together, and I think, “We shouldn’t even be taking your money.” But that’s how the books are balanced. I hope I respect each writer’s ambition and sincerity, even if I despair of their work […] I’m teaching evening classes to make ends meet. You think I’d be here if I was JK Rowling?”

Originally I wrote quite a few adjectives to describe this piece, and all of them were negative. Thinking about it, my main sadness comes as someone who values education and genuinely loves teaching. I don’t get to do it that much, but when I do I always really enjoy it. I look forward to it, I volunteer for it, I do it for no extra fee. It’s always the best and most rewarding part of my day. Also, teaching isn’t easy: it is its own specialty, with its own underpinning theory and requisite competencies. Continue Reading →

Today I went to see the exhibition The Serving Library at the Tate Liverpool. For those in the north-west, I recommend it. For those elsewhere, they have an interesting website.

A reflection on the future of libraries, this is a mixed media installation that considers the demise of printed media, and the opportunities presented by new technologies.

As my mother works for a printing company, I grew up with talk of typefaces and the smell of ink. I am interested in the visual aspect of poetry – not simply the arrangement of words on a page but also the decisions (or lack thereof) that are made regarding how those words are presented to the reader – the making of a tangible thing. Continue Reading →

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Welcome

Hello and welcome to my site. I am a poet and medical doctor working in paediatrics and child health in the north of England. In 2015 my first collection of poetry was published by the Hippocrates Press, and in 2017 I completed an MA in creative writing at the University of Lancaster. I hope you find something of interest here.

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Rupture – my first collection of poetry, available here:

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Please note that all images and poems displayed on this site are copyright Ellen Storm unless stated otherwise. All links are given for interest only and do not constitute endorsement of the opinions expressed or products marketed on linked sites.